[spoilers] AT makes a funny thread title

[AutomatedTeller]

Turn 48, with a new island

With the terrace, CarTalk expands borders a couple of turns early.

Still no stonehenge, btw.  Or any wonder.   

New island south of ruff:



I might be able to settle that.  If I can get Mr Cairo's island, too, that makes great lighthouse a higher priority.

Demos are looking great, which is unsurprising for imp/spi inca at this point in the game.  If my demos WEREN'T great, I'd be in big trouble. Note that top power went up by a little, not a lot. He might whip out another axe, but if he's smart, he'll stop with mil builds for now. I don't think he has a chance to take out Ruff.



WaitWait expands in 3 turns, so I have to figure out how to get Click there to farm the corn.   I'll have a settler ready to go in 5 for a new city.   I think I'll complete the road north of CarTalk, then move the forest NE of the corn, road that and then improve the corn.  

Whipped the terrace in DeliciousDish.



I had a choice to make here, after the whip - have the citizen work the oasis, which means I grow in 3 turns, or one of the silk forests for a turn. This means I'll grow in 4 turns, but the granary will have more stored, which is probably good.

I choose to grow more, so I can whip an axe in 3 turns and take care of the barbs. They might try to pillage the cow and warriors don't do well against spears.

[AutomatedTeller]

I've been doing thinking about wonders and whether I have a shot at Oracle.

I think I don't. I think Mr Cairo either has priesthood and is tech masonry, or has everything but priesthood.

My guess is that he's building oracle in his newest city, which would be a great power move to get culture over a lot of land.

He might be building it in his cap, of course, but I suspect his plan is to build Oracle and whip a forge, run an engineer to get machinery. If he builds oracle in his cap, he'll pollute the pool and run a pretty good chance of getting a priest. that's not the end of the world (monotheism or theocracy), but still.

[AutomatedTeller]

Turn 49, as SD surrounds Ruff

2 turns to AH.    I'm sending an axe and a quecha to WaitWait, and returning my quecha, so WaitWait will have 40% culture, 2 axes and 2 quecha if SD brings the three axes I see over.  I don't think he's doing that - I think he's trying to strangle Ruff, though that's not going to work well.

That said, Ruff clearly tried to kill his scout and failed. 



I don't know what SD is really trying to do.    By the time he gets all his axes there, ruff will have too many archers to kill.  Unless he's about to get Keshiks, of course. 

Internals:

WaitWait will grow next turn and will be able to whip an axe if necessary.  If not, it will just grow - whip in a 2nd worker
DeliciousDish will grow in 2 turns and will be able to whip an axe.   My plan there is let it grow to size 3 and whip the axe and use to it kill the barbs.  I might not bust the area and let the axe kill barbs. 

Yes, I'll do a big turn 50 update next turn. 

Mr Cairo seems to have just done a 2 pop whip - might be a settler or a worker, maybe a granary?  I think there's a chance he just got Priesthood and thus this was a 2 whip to overflow into Oracle.  that wouldn't surprise me at all.

[AutomatedTeller]

Turn 50, the what happened this turn post

2 pop whipped a settler in CarTalk.  That will go to the Red site, to the west, with corn/fish/sugar.
Sent one scout (the 4 xp one) off to find where Krill is, hopefully not getting killed by barbs.  I'm planning on bouncing him along superdeath's lands to the south.
Krill planted his 4th city, as well.  He's gone with the numbering scheme (city2, city3, city4)   He also whipped last turn.
Ruff didn't expand culture - that surprised me, but then I realize he lost a turn to slavery, so it should expand next turn.

Click moved to the forest NE of the corn.  He'll start farming that next turn.
Clack moved to the forest SW of DeliciousDish and put a turn of chopping into it.  He going to move and road next turn, on his way to pasturing the horse, wherever that is.  I'm betting 1N of WaitWait, because A)  I think that area needs a resource and B) I have a road on the tile.
PeterSagal continues to mine the gold and will then road it

There will be a large state of the civ post, as well.

[AutomatedTeller]

Turn 50 State of the Civ

Overview

A lot of my plans are dependent on Superdeath.  He has graphs on me - in fact, Superdeath is pumping espionage into me - he's at 60, so he knows I'm the lowest power
and, in fact, probably knows that I have only 1 axe.   If he sticks with attacking Ruff, I can keep expanding.  if he comes at me, I will need to do a lot of whipping.

I don't see him coming at me with ruff still around, but you never know.   He cannot conquer me, but he could inconvenience me.   

SD adds a certain amount of tension to the game   I kind of like it, to be honest.  My guess is it's about 10% he comes after me, so I definitely need to be able to address my power imbalance on short enough notice.



Turn 50 Civ Overview

Cities


4 cities, humming along.

Overall place in the world




2 different views that say "I'm IMP/SPI with cheap granaries".  If I wasn't winning these categories, I'd be very, very worried.  It'll start opening up more with a new city and growth.

Tech:  part way through the ancient age.  No beelining yet...





Not enough workers or military.  with 3 terraces in place, that will change.

Cities:

CarTalk



Just whipped a settler.    I have 2 more turns of anger from the 1st pop.  I think I grow to size 3 next turn, so I'll take back the clam from OnPoint.  Will grow on an axe and finish that before the next settler
Needs a lighthouse, barracks - everything, really.  It has 3 settlers to build this time period, and I'll probably try to get another worker from it.

WaitWait



Will whip the axe if I need.  I want to get a worker, a temple and units out of this, and start running a priest fora GP. Also, fail gold for Oracle.

Current plan is:
Grow to size 4 on the axe
Whip worker
grow to size 5 on oracle

Long term, get it to max size.  I'm thinking of running 4 priests to get a 2nd GP for a theo bulb, while building pyramids

DeliciousDish



Will whip the axe if I need.   I'm going to try to grow to size 3 before I do, though.  5 food is better than 4, after all.   

Current plan:
Grow to size 4
whip worker
Grow to size 4
whip/chop barracks
build units.  At size 5, it can make 8 hammers, which is an archer every 3 turns or axe/spear/chariot every 4 turns or, plus whatever I get from chops/whips.  Not bad for early on.

Long term, this is actually a pretty nice city.  Cow, floodplain, lake, crab is 7 food, so it can grow.  2 silk gives it a lot of commerce, plus a bunch of production from cow and plains tiles, plus a bunch of forests. Short term, it's probably a unit pump.


OnPoint:



Will grow next turn and make a workboat.  CarTalk is taking the clam, so I'll move the citizen to the silk forest.  Workboat will finish and I'll switch to a terrace.  Maybe an axe if SD looks frisky.
Workboat will go to explore the island.   

Current plan
Workboat
Terrace (whip)
galley
workboat (whales)
workboat (crab)
workboat (island crab)
workboat (fish)  Some of these will probably have to get whipped.

Once I have stone hooked up, I'll build Moai and whip in other things (like a lighthouse) as needed.  That can make 12 hpt for moai with stone.  

Opponent Analysis:

Superdeath is trying to kill Ruff, who is down to 1 city (which, oddly, didn't expand culture this turn).  He's got to be feelign supply costs, though his maintenance costs are low.
Ruff is just making archers.  I presume he's checked out at this point.
Krill just founded his 4th city, so he's caught up.  He's also still gaining power.  I expect a race between him and Mr Cairo for Oracl
Mr Cairo founded his 3rd a couple of turns ago and put a totem pole in it.  His power has flattened - I presume he's going for Oracle.
GeneralKilCavalry is still in a way with krill, which I presume is not a hot war, but who knows.  When is he going to build stonehenge, anyway?

Espionage:

I have graphs on Ruff, Mr cairo and Krill.  GKC has not put any espionage into me.  Superdeath has put 60 into me, so he definitely knows I have the least power

Future:

Assuming SD does not extend to attack, my plans till turn 75 are:
Expand at least 3 more cities - Red, gold, Island
Tech to AH, Masonry, Priesthood, Sailing, writing, hopefully part or most of math.  Archery, depending on SD.
Get some fail gold from oracle.
Get started on the great Lighthouse in Red.  
Get at least one barracks up and running
at least double my worker count.  
get 2 luxes hooked up (gold and whale)

Expansion plans:

I want 3 more cities this period.

Red.  This will be AllThingsConsidered and will try to build the greatlighthouse.  It will be pure hammer.  Terrace->lighthouse->great lighthouse. This needs a dedicated worker - mining a hill is 5 or 7 turns (7 if I road).  I might want a 2nd worker when we get math to chop out forests for the lighthouse.
Gold. This will exist to give me stone, and also to be a southern naval center.   I will chop out terrace, walls, a workboat and a galley from here, in the hopes of settling what I presume is that island down there.  It needs a worker, to chop the forest the city will go, improve the stone and chop out a terrace, workboat, walls and galley. Not sure what improvements will be there.
Island.  Exactly where remains to be seen.  A cruel joke would be for Commodore to have placed our horse on that tundra tile.  if so, that will be a higher priority than gold, since horses are the only thing we have that can kill superdeaths axes on solid ground, at least until construction.  There is a fair chance that this needs no worker at all, though it might if there is a resource up there.

Where I want to expand:  



I have, I think, 9 more sites on the map.  One of those, purple, is aggressive.  It's possible because SD and Ruff are fighting.  That said, if Mr Cairo puts Oracle in his new city (Had a Rocket, i think he called it), then I don't see how I can hold a city there, since his culture will cut off any land route.  it would be a strong play to do that, but he might just build it in cap because it's faster.  

In any case - 13 cities would be great, especially if two of them were islands.  I'm not sure I'll be able to do that - SD might settle 2 island cities down there - I certainly would if I were him.   That might be the best outcome of his war, since it looks like Ruff is too tough - he just gets all the land down there. 


Workers:

Click has moved to improve the corn for AllThingsConsidered, which should be available next turn with WaitWait's border expansion
Clack is moving south to either cottage for the CarTalk, or hopefully improve the horse that should be in our borders.  
PeterSagal is improving the gold and then the cow, unless circumstances force him to chop.  Need more workers.

[AutomatedTeller]

Turn 51, where horse is revealed

Awesome.   Horse is not near WaitWait, it is:



yes, right where I was planning on plopping a city.  I have 2 choices:

on Horses:

Pluses:  get horses right away
2 hammer tile right away - can whip terrace a turn earlier, can whip the lighthouse a turn earlier.  
Will be able to use an extra coastal tile.  
Strong hammer city, but needs to share with the cap.
Green can be a little better - can share the corn, for instance.

Desert: 
Makes a useless tile useful.   
City will be a monster production site at size 8 (corn, fish, plain horse, 4 grass hill, 1 plain hill = 21 hpt.
At size 6, desert makes more hammers.
1 extra commerce
Green is just a pure fishing village.  Will get sugar, whale, cottage, bunch of water.

I guess desert is the plan.       

This is one reason I like the early game a lot - you are always discovering stuff.  After the classical era and exploration is done, it's all out manuevering.  

Finished the gold, demos look like:



That is at 0% science.

In other news:

Top soldiers went up by 3K - superdeath made an archer.  Unless Krill is top power, of course.
Krill burned one of GKC's cities
Superdeath continues to plow all his espionage into me, while still not knowing GKC.

There are 2 more horses in lands I'm looking to settle.


the northern site with ivory is looking better.

I added my exploration path for the workboat. That will, of course, change as I find stuff. Like the other island hidden up there, right?


Question: why don't I have visibility on Ruff's capital? It's on a hill. I own the tile in the red square. If that was land, I believe I would see the cap. Is it because it's a water tile?

[AutomatedTeller]

Something I didn't think about - settling on horses hooks me up right away. I need sailing or a border pop to hook up the desert tile.

I still think I'll do desert, though. I think it's a stronger tile. Green being terrible isn't a big deal, since it's pretty terrible anyway.

the only real issue is not getting horses for an extra 8 turns or so, but I don't think Superdeath is coming at me. he seems set on screwing with ruff, even though there's not much of a chance he can kill him.

[AutomatedTeller]

Strategy post, or where do I build Great Lighthouse?

I've spent some time thinking about this, particularly in light of my traits.

Imp/spi is great at getting out settlers and not wasting time with civics changes, but it's terrible at making buildings.   Thus, I really need to be careful where I build things like lighthouses - they need to go where they do the most good.

I need a lighthouse for the great lighthouse.  I will want one at some point, but right now, it will make my food +10 instead of +9, so who cares?

OnPoint really needs one, but can't build the GreatLighthouse.
DeliciousDish needs one, but not as badly, and I want it to be a commerce city, not a production site.
WaitWait is not coastal
 

So, CarTalk will make one more settler, for the island, and then the great lighthouse.
AllThingsConsidered will become my new settler pump/mil city.  It will likely build chariots.

[AutomatedTeller]

Another question for lurkers:

I'm debating building a few chariots and attacking SD's randomly strewn about axes in Ruff's lands, mainly to get XP for my first GG. Having a GG and barracks means 2 promo units, which will help me when I start attacking people.

This means declaring on Ruff, of course, which would be interesting.

My question is: is there any general etiquette about doing this or not doing this? I'm quite a ways from chariots rolling off the lines, as it were, so this might just be moot. But can anyone see anything inherently wrong in my doing this?

For instance, if I do this, I'll DOW Ruff and then DOW SD. SD can make the assumption that I'm there to attack Ruff, but if I then DOW him and kill his axes, will he have reason to be pissed? I mean, about unfairness - not that I'm swiping his units.

I don't know that I want to do this, to be honest - just taking Ruff's lands is interesting to me, anyway.

[RefSteel]

Question: why don't I have visibility on Ruff's capital?   It's on a hill.  I own the tile in the red square. If that was land, I believe I would see the cap.    Is it because it's a water tile?

Yes. Water tiles are "lower" than land tiles, which makes it easier to see over them and harder for them to see over land.

My question is: is there any general etiquette about doing this or not doing this? I'm quite a ways from chariots rolling off the lines, as it were, so this might just be moot. But can anyone see anything inherently wrong in my doing this?

No, there is nothing inherently wrong about declaring war on one civ in order to be able to attack units belonging to another civ. Of course, you'll have to observe a three-way turnsplit if you do so. (That is: Obviously diplomatic ramifications are unknown to me, but it certainly wouldn't be "cheating.")